I guess that is how I define morals, in a way, "Protecting the individual from everyone else". Most people can agree that they don't want to die, be stolen from or have anything else bad happen to them. There's plenty of morals people can agree on.
Rather than being based on God or any religously inspired ideas, I tend to base my moral system around one that allows society to exist in a state in which people will be safe from other people, and also safe from themselves. It does absolutely no good to have a system of laws protecting citizens, wherein through their immoral actions/mind-frames they become capable of harming themselves. I sometimes think it's immoral to raise people into being masochistic shells of humanity.
Personally I feel the morality of the government reflects upon the people, not only in a developmental fashion but also in more direct matters. Which is why I think Government should be some kind of moral epitemy. To me,
the basic goal of the Government is the raising of healthy, productive citizens to further the development of the nation. Considering the government plays a large part in the education of it's citizens, I feel it should be capable of bringing children up to be moral citizens who are fully capable of thought and of whole-some moral character-- contributions to society. Without that you have a nation full of jackasses. Without the people within the nation, you have no nation nor culture. The individuals who comprise it are the most important thing(ideally). The more productive the citizens, the more productive the nation.
However, I can see what you're saying. There's people who go, "It's wrong to commit murder" and other people who think it's immoral to worship any god but theirs. I guess where it starts to get fuzzy is when you start impeding people from being gluttonous slobs. It's kind of hard to say if it's moral to allow them to be filth(or, even worse, to lead them to it through a poorly structured culture), but just as hard to say they should be jailed or reeducated... which is precisely why I think it's important, developmentally, to be instilled with moral and character; to avoid ever having to deal with the above circumstances.
Basically, how I feel about it is this: if it's immoral to beat, molest and instill your children with poor values why should it be any different for the government? What kind of parent are you if you raise children with poor moral values who can't function properly, non-the-less raise their own children. Self-perpetuating circumstances are kind of hard to get out of, and I don't really see any point to being a unifed group of people unless it's to alleviate these problems and evolve past them.
You kind of have to look at it through, "Metaphysical consequence" and consider what will happen. Through the past, to the future; through mine eye a camel swalleth ;(
And thanks for quoting me kevin, it makes me feel so special.
p.s.
Ever hear of this guy?
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